All right.
Thank you.
We're going to be meditating on joy and happiness today.
I'm just going to open with a little quote from Thich Nhat Hanh and he says,
Suffering is not enough.
Life is both dreadful and wonderful.
How can I smile when I'm filled with so much sorrow?
It's natural.
You need to smile to your sorrow because you are more than just your sorrow.
So let's begin by taking a deep breath and finding a comfortable posture.
If you need to shift at any time,
You're welcome to do so.
If you need to stretch,
You can do that as well.
I'm just going to connect with the anchor of our choice.
We did introduce the breath as an anchor,
Sensation in the hands as an anchor,
The feet,
And also sound.
So you might connect with the sound of my voice or one of those anchors of sensation,
Feeling the belly rise and fall with the breath.
And you might notice the sound of my voice.
You also might notice sound outside of the room.
And that's okay.
That's part of the experience.
I can say the art of meditating in the real world teaches us to tolerate a bit of extra sounds.
I'm going to arrive with a brief body scan.
And today's topic is happiness and joy and welcoming that in with rain.
First with the body,
We might notice a smile.
If you can try a small smile on your face and experiment with what you feel when you bring that smile to your face.
It doesn't have to be a big grin,
Unless that feels natural.
But even a little uplift of the corners of the mouth.
I'm sure you've heard that it takes less muscles,
More less power on the face to smile than it does to frown.
If you can imagine that smile on your face,
Notice what happens to the sensation of the face.
A smile from the body is a signal to the brain that we're happy,
Or at least content,
Or a little bit joyous.
There might be a feeling of uplift.
You might feel that the head feels a little lighter.
Or you might not.
Sometimes we get out of practice with smiling.
It might come to mind the last time you had a really good belly laugh.
Just feeling how that loosens everywhere in the body.
Laughter is often described as something that sort of bubbles up from the center of us.
You can allow that smile to move from the face to behind the eyes.
A smile might be somehow felt inside of the mouth.
A smile might travel into the throat,
Might feel looser.
For most of us,
When we're content,
Feeling joy,
Our words flow easily.
We might let that smile travel into the heart space.
Just letting things around the heart open and soften.
If you can notice the feeling of joy,
Happiness,
Perhaps the collarbones might drop a little,
Shoulders might relax.
You might invite softening to travel from the neck into the upper back.
You might find joy welling up in the stomach,
Up into the chest.
Letting the muscles of the abdomen soften.
Letting the belly round.
Inviting that smile to move into the hips.
Maybe for you,
Joy and happiness might be expressed by a color and you might feel that color moving throughout the body.
It might be a golden light,
Maybe a rainbow of color.
Inviting that sense of well-being,
Happiness,
Joy to spread from the torso through the hips into the buttocks,
The large muscles of the thighs,
Working the way through the knees,
Down into the calves,
All the way down to the feet.
Connecting with the feeling of the feet and the shoe touching the floor or the sandal.
Feeling the energy of your own joy,
Happiness,
Contentment in relationship with the earth.
There's that well spring of vitality and life in the earth that we can connect into.
Creating a circuit of just letting that energy flow.
You might feel the joy coming in with the breath.
Feeling the breath coming from the top of the head,
Moving down through the energies of the spine,
Body,
All the way down to the feet.
You might practice what we call whole body breathing.
Just feeling that energy rolling in and out of the body,
Taking in the hands and the feet,
Offering a glimpse of light.
We'll consciously run through RAIN.
If you remember,
RAIN stands for Recognize,
Accept,
Investigate,
And Nurture.
So for recognizing joy,
You might be recognizing joy in yourself right now easily.
Or you might want to connect with a moment of joy that you had in the last week.
Perhaps pleasure at something growing in your garden.
Feeling the warmth of the sun on your face.
Maybe the touch of a loved one.
Comforting presence of a pet.
Maybe a moment of humor.
Recognizing what joy and happiness look like for you.
Just feel what it feels like if we can accept that whole experience.
Just welcoming in the sensation of joy.
Without criticism,
Without judgment,
Not thinking I should have felt more joy.
I didn't have enough joy.
It didn't last.
Just letting go of all those ideas about it.
And just appreciating that moment of pleasure,
That moment of joy.
We might investigate joy.
What brings you joy?
Comfort of a beloved pet.
Smell of the sea.
Satisfaction of something you completed.
A moment of creativity.
Hearing your favorite song or piece of music.
And now we'll just lean into that.
The end stage for this exercise today is to just connect with that feeling through the body.
I'm just going to be silent for a moment and let you make your own connection.
I'll ask you to bring your attention back to this moment in the room here.
You might wiggle fingers and toes.
You might stretch.
